Hyderabad: A Telangana government delegation, led by irrigation minister T. Harish Rao, on Monday met Union water resources minister Uma Bhar-ti, and asked for the constitution of a Statutory Tribunal to look into fresh reallocation of Krishna river water among the four riparian states, including Telangana.
Mr Rao, along with TRS MPs and officials, including special chief secretary of irrigation B. Aravind Reddy, and engineering-in-chief Muralidhar, met Ms Bharti and chairman of Central Water Commiss-ion A.B. Pandya.
The minister submitted a formal petition to the Central government on the need to reconstitute the Krishna Tribu-nal to ensure equitable share in distribution of waters to Telangana, ke-eping the contribution of catchment area and the requirements of the region in mind.
According to Mr Rao, Ms Bharti assured the delegation of considering the Telangana government’s request favorably.
The delegation represented to Ms Bharti that the allocations made by the Bachawat Commisson in 1973 and the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal in 2013 did not specify water allocation to the Telangana region and had only made allotments to the three riparian states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and AP.
Mr Rao pointed out that due to this, there had been injustice done to projects in the Telan-gana region by the undivided AP government all these years. “Since Telangana has been for-med as a state, it has every right to demand its share in Krishna wa-ters including fresh allocations for drinking wa-ter requirements of Hy-derabad and its surro-undings due to increase in population,” he said.
Mr Rao also demanded national project status for the Pranahita-Chevella gigantic lift irrigation project on the lines of the Polavaram project, which had been declared as a national project in the AP Re-organisation Bill.
He told the Union minister that in view of the heavy cost involved, the Telangana government could not take up the construction and it was the responsibility of the Centre to come to the state’s rescue.
